To Kingdom Come

She couldn’t help herself. She hopped up and down a time or two and clapped her hands. “I did.”

“Excellent. And I suppose you bought some nice shoes and some perfume and powders and such.”

“Well, if you can go to a chemist, I don’t see why I cannot,” she maintained.

“Of course,” I said. “Are you hungry?”

“Famished. Shopping gives me an appetite.”

After lunch, we took in more sights. We visited the cathedral of Notre-Dame, where Maire went in and prayed. Then we shook our heads in wonder at the beauty of the Jardin des Tuileries and strolled about the gardens.

“I know this is all pretend and we’re not really on our honeymoon, Thomas, but I want you to know I’m having the best time of my life.”

“I am, as well,” I told her.

“I haven’t always had an easy life,” she continued. “It hasn’t turned out the way I could have wished, so far. Certainly, I never expected to be strolling in a French garden with a handsome fellow my own age. It would be too much to hope for. Oh, I’ve made you blush again! You’d make a poor spy, Thomas. All your emotions are on your sleeve!”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked. Had I betrayed myself? As far as I knew, there had been nothing in my conduct that had revealed who I really was.

“I mean you’re as open as a book. You need to spend more time in Paris, among all these suave boulevardiers.”

“Oh, I like that,” I protested. “Thank you very much. And to think I bought you lunch. I wonder how you dare be seen in Paris with an oaf like me.”

She laughed and took my hand. “You’re not an oaf, Thomas. You are a dear. And I shall always cherish this time in Paris with you.”

She kissed me then. For a moment, I felt as if all subterfuge was gone. Names and affiliations did not matter. It was just the two of us.

“Shall we go to the opera tonight?” I queried.

“Oh, yes, let’s!”

I wasn’t prepared for the sight of Maire in her new evening dress. It was a masterpiece of gold and silver with a bustle, but it showed far more of her neck and bosom than I was comfortable with. She was brave to put it on, but balked at the last minute.

“Is it too much?” she asked, closing a matching mantle over it. “Or rather, too little? The seamstress assured me it was la mode this year. Everyone shall be dressing this way.”

“Very well,” I said. “But you must hide that dress from your brother, or he will kill me.”

“Oh, don’t mind Eamon. I’ve got the boy wrapped around my finger.”

“Really? And which finger have you got reserved for me?” I wondered aloud.

I found out after the opera. The performance was Manon, a very tragic story. Our eyes were glued to the stage throughout the entire production. She wept openly at the end, and even I had a lump in my throat. We were rather subdued in the carriage ride back to the hotel.

I began preparing the chaise longue for the night while she changed.

“I feel dreadful, your sleeping on this chaise here,” she said.

“I’m used to it.”

She came out from behind the screen, wearing only her nightdress. It was unbuttoned. I saw the gap, the long, thin gap of ivory-colored flesh, all the way to the floor.

“It is very cold in a marriage bed, all alone,” she murmured, her hand stroking my cheek. She pulled me over onto the bed. She was wearing a new French perfume that made my head spin. Her soft lips pressed urgently against my own. I was intoxicated. I could feel my own passion begin to ignite. However, I had been training for months in the production of explosives, and I knew what kind of chemical reaction would happen if things went too far.

“No!” I said, pulling myself away, off the bed.

“What is wrong?” she asked in a low voice. “Have I displeased you? I only wished to show you how I feel about you.” The latter came out almost petulantly. She pulled the corner of a blanket over her bare limbs.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. My shirt was suddenly damp; my heart was pounding. “I care for you, as well,” I said. “More than you know. But I cannot accept what you … offer. It is not mine to take. It belongs to your future husband.”

“But what if you are my future husband?” she countered, looking me in the eyes.

“Then I should have it after we are married. Not now.”

She slowly pulled the blanket up over her head. I heard her sniff back a tear.

“I’ve been a fool,” she said from inside her makeshift cave. “You must think me terribly wanton. I’ve never done anything like this before in my life.”

“I believe you,” I said. “And I’d never think you a fool.”

“I don’t know what it is about you, Thomas Penrith,” she continued. “You’ve got me thinking the maddest thoughts and doing the wildest things. I’m not like this, you know. I’m a sensible girl.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking the same thoughts about you, Maire.” I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it. She came out from beneath the blanket, which had disheveled her beautiful auburn hair.

“I’ve been seduced by Paris and the pretty clothes and the opera,” she said. “And by you, or at least the thought of you. You aren’t like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“I was worried that Willie might have had a prior claim on you,” I told her.

“Willie,” she said with a sad smile. “Willie is wonderful and handsome and a man of great talent, but he is not a-a lover. You are a lover, Thomas. You smolder.”

Smolder, eh? She said I smoldered. I had the absurd desire to go down to the street and inform passersby that I smoldered. Me, Thomas Llewelyn. Or was it Thomas Penrith? Or Charles Beaton? No matter. No woman had ever told me that before.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I care for you too much to allow this to happen. Part of me is mad for it, but another part will not allow it. I cannot stay here. I need some fresh air.”

I threw on a jacket and was about to quit the room.

“Stay,” she demanded, seizing my wrist.

“I cannot. I must clear my head.”

“No, I mean come to stay in Dublin when this is all over. Stay with me.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what I’ll be doing.”

“Stay, or take me with you.”

My head was suddenly swollen with millions of thoughts. They were far too heavy for my weary shoulders.

“Perhaps,” I said, as I dashed out into the hall. Having escaped the scene, I leaned my shoulders on the other side of the door and breathed in cooler, less electrically charged air. I heard a sob, almost a wail in the room behind me. My hand reached toward the knob, but I mastered myself. I ran through the hallway and down the stairs.

In the street, a sound escaped my throat, a more masculine version of Maire’s wail. I could feel my heart thumping, shooting blood too quickly through my limbs and head. I lurched like a drunkard until I found a bench, where I collapsed and buried my head in my arms. When I’d taken this case, I hadn’t meant to fall in love.

Was it love? Barker told me once that women were my weakness, and I tended to agree with him. I had not known Maire for more than a few weeks, but how long did a man need to know a woman before falling in love? There is such a thing as love at first sight. Certainly, Maire was a woman any man could fall for. I could picture going home to her after a day’s work, her fussing over me, looking at her by the fire. What had Thomas Hardy said, in Far from the Madding Crowd? “Whenever you look up, there I shall be-and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

I madly combed my fingers through my hair. Who was I trying to fool? Did I really expect to go home from our offices in Craig’s Court to an I.R.B. princess? Would Barker allow it? Would she? Would I contemplate leaving my position as assistant to go build bombs for the Irish and become a traitor to England? Of course not. As Barker had told me, the minute she found out I was a spy, Maire would hate me with as much passion as she had almost just loved me.